Monday, December 26, 2011

Many observers will note that at some point in time or another, they witnessed (if not perpetrators themselves) internet inquiries around the origins of Maghrebi populations, whom as indigenous Africans (let's face it; they are not endemic to any other region outside of Africa), are notable not only for having elements among them who are relative "outliers" in terms of epidermal pigmentation, but also for their own original distinctive language family, properly called Tamazight—otherwise inconsiderately known in English lingo as "Berber". These populations have wittingly or unwittingly been subjects of racism, in the sense that their "African-ness" have been questioned primarily because of appearance of those populations among them with "light skin", "depigmented skin" or "white skin'—the terms change depending on who's speaking. If for example, they were unanimously dark-skinned like the remainder of African populations, it is highly doubtful that "western" researchers would even consider tacitly passing them off as some sort of lost-Europeans (or extensions of Europeans) in Africa, notwithstanding any genetic similarity to the patterns seen today of Maghrebi populations.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

We proceed on from the last segment, wherein we looked at how nationalism and like ideology continues to plague science. No science has infamously suffered from this more than the discipline of human palaeontology. In the "west", the venture into this field started with getting to know remains of the European Neanderthal, and the sparking thereof, the belief that Europe was the hub of human origins.

Monday, November 14, 2011

In the previous segment, a good deal of space was dedicated to a straightforward preliminary look at the portrayal of non-European peoples, especially Africans, in "western" media not merely as a loosely connected hodgepodge of unconscious and conscious underlying motives, ranging from economic considerations to racism, but rather, as a conscious undertaking of "western" imperialism, of which the 'western' establishments are quite mindful.

Friday, November 11, 2011

In the previous segments of the this blog entry, much attention was paid to History channel documentary reenactments of the ancients of Africa, particularly the Ancient Egyptians. Ancient Egypt has been the most popular subject of 'western' fascination and romanticism, but this sort of thing has not been limited to just Egypt. It has been extended to other African complexes, from Timbuktu, the Great Zimbabwe, to ancient Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia). A good example of this can be seen in the portrayal of an Ancient Abyssinian kingdom in the now 9 year old comedy flick of the title "The Hot Chick".

Monday, October 31, 2011

The taking up of African
historiography by Europeans has long been mired with disinformation, as
scholars of European descent sought to accommodate imperialist designs
of their governments around the African continent. This matter had been
particularly brushed on briefly in an earlier entry discussing the
significance of additional Timbuktu chronicles
that were brought to light in recent times and the corresponding rush
to preserve those relics, whereby we come across the systematic
construction of the "Ghana Conquest Theory", at a time when European
polities had their eye set on colonizing African territories and fuel
their growth with African resources. The historiography of Ancient
Ghana, and Western Sudan (otherwise now recognized as "West Africa") in
general, was but just one element of this disinformation campaign; the
policy had extended to other elements of African historiography, Ancient
Egypt being the most popular and enduring example of this. Complexes
from Kush, Abyssinia or Aksum to the Great Zimbabwe had all become
casualties of European disinformation.

The taking up of African historiography by Europeans has long been mired with disinformation, as scholars of European descent sought to accommodate imperialist designs of their governments around the African continent. This matter had been particularly brushed on briefly in an earlier entry discussing the significance of additional Timbuktu chronicles that were brought to light in recent times and the corresponding rush to preserve those relics, whereby we come across the systematic construction of the "Ghana Conquest Theory", at a time when European polities had their eye set on colonizing African territories and fuel their growth with African resources. The historiography of Ancient Ghana, and Western Sudan (otherwise now recognized as "West Africa") in general, was but just one element of this disinformation campaign; the policy had extended to other elements of African historiography, Ancient Egypt being the most popular and enduring example of this. Complexes from Kush, Abyssinia or Aksum to the Great Zimbabwe had all become casualties of European disinformation.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

This entry is the continuation of an earlier entry on the genesis of the universe, and perspectives on that issue, both from scientific standpoint and theological standpoint. Here, the main focus will be on what then science says must have happened before our universe emerged, if as science says, that there is no need to look towards God as the agent responsible for getting the universe going . Read the 1st and 2nd parts of this topic: Here and here, respectively.

This entry is the continuation of an earlier entry on the genesis of the universe, and perspectives on that issue, both from scientific standpoint and theological standpoint. Here, the main focus will be on the "life" aspect of the universe. Read the first part of this topic: Here

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Perhaps there were moments in humanity's social evolutionary history when religion served a progressive purpose, in the sense that it allowed humans to make that transition to begin asking questions of how they got here, how our world came to be and so forth. The turn towards burying the dead love ones by our pre-historic ancestors testifies to this abstract thought in human development, and hence, must have marked a turning point in human thinking. This was to serve as the prelude to the concept of scientific inquiry of our existence and how our world came to be.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Just like the other romanticized media concoctions of Africa to 'western' and/or 'western influenced' audiences around the world, another typification of Africans is the practice of 'witchcraft'. A burgeoning trend in 'western' media outlets, is the progressive building up of a narrative of "increasing witchcraft" violence on the continent, whereby 'witchcraft' may be defined as follows: "defining witch craft as superstitious behavior that would traditionally be considered deviant".

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Herein the age old question surrounding the creation of the Universe, including our planet Earth of course, and God's role in this will be visited and analyzed in some detail, both from the physicists' and creationists' perspectives.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

It has become fashionable within elements of 'western' academia, to shift traditionally African-ascribed markers unit by unit to overseas origins, while very few are open to the possibilities that markers long taken for granted as "Eurasian" could actually be of direct African origin. The drivers for such moves can be a matter of trying to shift the Out Of Africa conception of human origins overseas, on a piece by piece and gradual basis, especially given preexisting scant substantiation to the contrary, or else a matter of not coming to terms with the prospect of recent African ancestry in "non-African" territories, which is determined to tarnish "racial purity" by racist cliques, and/or implicates Africans—particularly "black Africans"—as agents of certain "important" sociocultural turning points or "technological breakthroughs" in human history. In this respect, as a common example among many, haplogroup E—the predominant contemporary Y-DNA phylogeny on the African continent which has not only gained reputation for spilling over the boundaries of Africa in a substantial way, but also tied to "turning points" in human history, like say, the turn to a farming economy during the Neolithic era—has gained elevated interest over the years. This interest has accompanied the effort to shift the origins of the haplogroup from Africa to "Eurasia" via a "Middle Eastern origin" theory by certain parties. An earlier example of this, by Chandrasekar & co. (2007), had been discussed on this site; the example this time around comes from Abu-Amero et al. (2009), which will be the subject of review of this blog entry.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Many of us in our formative years, or else at some point in our adulthood, have become familiar with the mythical super-human personality known as Superman, amongst a number of other fictional characters with extraordinary strength and/or supernatural powers. The character was reportedly conceived in the early 30s by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, themselves immediate descendants of Jewish immigrants. Superman's first comic publication appearance is said to have occurred in 1938, in an Action Comics No.1. The so-called Superman had soon gained quite a following in American society and other corners of the globe, and had become something of a cultural icon in the U.S.—that is to say, a symbol of the United States of America. Photo stills or renditions of this super-human figure with either the American flag in the background, or the figure holding the American flag, had subsequently become a common sight in this country (U.S.A.). Even the popular Superman movies of the late seventies and eighties, which have somewhat immortalized Christopher Reeve—who played the alter-egos of the super-hero, elements of this jingoism can be detected, like for instance, in Superman's now familiar lines of; “Truth, Justice and the American Way”. This phenomenon had not been lost on observers, like Timothy Aaron Pevey for instance, who reportedly said as follows in his work, From Superman to Superbland: The Man of Steel's Popular Decline Among Postmodern Youth: "an immigrant figure whose desire was to fit into American culture as an American".

Clade M1 has been mentioned on this site quite a few times, usually in complicated molecular genetics jargon that some may be hard-pressed to understand. At times, the jargon proves to be complicated to the point that some individuals don't even realize it, when their ideological views about this clade are being refuted beyond little to no doubt. So to address this, the goal herein is to simplify basic facts about this clade to the extent possible.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

It is a familiar name for one of the largest tectonic plates on the planet and something that primary school kids can easily place on the map. There are very few places on the globe where the name "Africa" has not been heard, yet it seems to be the most inexplicably misconstrued and misused name. Thanks to basic geography lessons in schools, kids can pretty much get the basic idea of Africa right; so why can't full grown adults?

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The question of ancient Egyptian body proportion indexes first appeared on this site under the discussion ""Demic Diffusion" Dynastic models: R.I.P", wherein the strengths and weaknesses of certain published journals was visited upon. It appears to be a topic that recurrently finds its way into internet forum discussions, usually through the initiation of reactionary elements within Eurocentric ideological circles in order to explain away what looks to be a consensus observation, i.e. the generally "tropical body proportions" of pre-dynastic and Dynastic ancient Egyptian specimens, which has also been described by some observers as "Super-Negroid" body proportions. Amongst the authors cited here earlier on, Sonia Zakrzewki's work, "Variation in Ancient Egyptian Stature and Body Proportions". Well, we will take another look at this publication, in light of some idea circling in cyberspace, about "tropical body plans" having no phylogenetic basis—which in this case, is recent ancestry in tropics—and is merely a function of adaptation to dietary quality. Note: Please click on all images to get greater resolution.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

There seems to be a trend amongst 'western' geneticists, to cite third party (not of their own) sources to bolster theories that cannot be sufficiently explained by their own findings. This often leads to the referencing of sources that concern samples of geographic specifics, and possibly, sample sizes that are distinct from those of the research group doing the citing [of the foreign source], without full understanding of the archeological record and linguistic background of the sample subjects under study. A good example of this can be found in the 2009 study by Tishkoff et al. that was the topic of this blog in the same year, wherein the authors cite at least three different external sources on Fulani gene pool, concerning Y-DNA, mtDNA, and lactase persistence-affiliated T-13910 allele of the MCM6 gene, as means of securing support for a theory they envisioned from their limited data. For instance, they speculated that a section of their Fulani samples must have low to moderate levels of "European/Middle Eastern" ancestry, because there was some connection with the "European/Middle Eastern" cluster. Apparently their results were not sufficient enough to make that speculation conclusive, and so, compelled them to call on external sources as means to buttress their estimation of their results.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

There is an attitude of dismissal amongst personalities who are foreign to and scornful of African cultures, with regards to elements of Sahelian/Sudanic architectural traditions, as merely simple structures of mud. Never mind the multiple layers of design both in physiology and building-material that constitute the Sahelian or Sudanic architectural traditions. In an earlier posting, the long tradition of building in stone in western Africa, along with several mud-built designs, was elaborately covered [see: Before the Ruins]. Perhaps nothing gets the point across better than photography, just how elaborate and sophisticated the otherwise "bland" looking architectural designs are; paint-jobs can do wonders in bringing out the true sophistry of these designs, that perhaps unpainted architecture do not make as apparent.

About Me

The internet is obviously an invaluable tool, but it can also work the other way—i.e. comes with certain risks, however far in between. Sparing oneself from potential identity theft or abuse warrants a good measure of anonymity. Hence, the turn towards a pseudonym. This site was not conceived with view to winning blogosphere "popularity contests". Attention-grabbing controversial posturing is out of character here, although it's recognized that many out there do have opinions on any given topic, and that topics which instill polarizing viewpoints may indeed crop up by chance. The overriding goal here is to build a one-stop referential spot for things African, and in doing so, hopefully ease off the flood of misinformation about the continent. Reader commentary isn't restricted, provided that it's done in a respectful insult-free tone. Violation thereof will be met with rejection without reservation. Hope the site proves to be informative to those who care to avail themselves of information gathered herein. Be sure to check the "Developments" link on the top of the page, to look for possible updates elsewhere in the blog!